Philips Electronics has provided a range of static and dynamic LED lighting solutions to realize Manchester City Council’s vision of “Sense of Place”. Not only has the area gained a unique identity enhancing both the natural and built environment but it has been achieved in a sustainable way since the project benefits from low energy consumption and minimum maintenance, key attributes of LED technology.
Together with the council’s partners, the project was carried out under the Manchester Community Engagement Strategy to develop certain areas of the city with innovative lighting, signage, heritage trails and street furniture. The main objective of the project was to make it easy for visitors to navigate Manchester’s distinct urban spaces and to improve the appeal of the key areas to business and leisure visitors.
Using an array of state-of-the-art LED solutions, including ColorBlast 12 Powercore, LEDline and LEDflood modules together with street lighting solutions such as City Spirit the areas of Petersfield, Oxford Road Cultural Corridor and Manchester’s City Centre Canals have been transformed. In addition, a dynamic Vidiwall screen has been installed to allow up to the minute details of events and exhibitions to be displayed.
Manchester City Council viewed the lighting as an integral element of the Sense of Place project. Essentially, the Philips LED solutions were important in helping promote Manchester Central as a conference and visitor destination within the city centre. This would not only increase business revenue but would also increase safety around the canals encouraging use of the canals after daylight hours. The lighting has also helped ensure that the cultural identity created around Oxford Road is synonymous with the district.
Having tendered for this £500k project, Philips working in partnership with lighting project managers LITE Ltd, and LPS electrical contractors, delivered an integrated lighting solution within the project’s specified time and budget considerations.
To give visitors direction and guidance the City Spirit post top lanterns not only incorporated the location name but were also colour coded. At night the panels carrying the text are back lit in the same colour, thus, becoming a beacon attracting people into Petersfield from the surrounding areas.
Colour effect has also been used to full advantage in the subway link from Manchester Central car park to Bridgewater Hall. A colour changing sequence has been applied to the entrance whilst white light washes vertically to the ceiling at the Bridgewater Basin end. Within the basin itself, further colour change effects have been used to reflect off the water, all achieved via a wireless control system.
Further static and dynamic colour changing lighting has been utilized on the underside of the 3 canal bridges creating attractive reflections in the water as pedestrians stroll along the towpath. Here, the major challenge was to position the fixtures to eliminate any potential vandalism and to avoid glare and discomfort to users of the space.
Above all one of the most challenging elements of the project was the successful linkage of the Vidiwall screen with its control system which was achieved via the installation of a wireless system enabling content to be downloaded. Without doubt it was the strong working partnership developed between Philips, LITE and the major stakeholders of the project which allowed the successful realization of the Manchester Sense of Place concept.
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